This is not Dome, it Rocks

Have you heard about the new restaurant on the moon? The food is great, but they say there's no atmosphere there.

What happened to the peanut when he walked down the road? He was assaulted. 
How do I feel about blogging right now? -_- I have a feeling this blog is going to be 90% pictures.
Ok, also I got an email from a friend this last week with something really funny that I have to share. "If you're ever feeling dumb, just remember that sometimes sloths grab their own arms, thinking that they're tree branches, and fall to their death." I have laughed about that for way too long. 

ANYWAY, this week exceeded all expectations. As always. We went into the Old City all day Monday. Our first stop was at the Western Wall again; it's quickly becoming very apparent that I love the Western Wall. It really might be one of my very favorite places to visit in Jerusalem thus far. We were hoping to see the Torah reading and/or a Bar Mitzvah, and we were not disappointed. We saw a wedding party as well.

I was able to look over the divider between the men and the women and watch people using prayer accessories; I would tell you the specific name for them, but I missed the question on our test about the Hebrew word so I obviously don't know. 

Here you can see the Torah. Judaism believes that the Torah is the blueprint for the world and that God consulted it when he created the world. It contains the first five books of Moses. 

The black box on his forehead probably contains the shema: Deuteronomy 6:5-9. Verse nine talks about writing it (the scripture) on the posts of the house, which is why Jewish people will have mezuzah's containing this prayer nailed by their door.

I didn't place a prayer in the wall because I've done it a few times now. If I stop and think about it, I realize this tradition is very similar to the prayer roll in the LDS temples. You can call the temple and place someone's name on the prayer roll, and my understanding is that the people on the roll will be prayed for. I feel like a lot of religions have a practice similar to this: prayer chains, or prayer emails. It seems to be a pretty universally stable idea.

After the Western Wall, we crossed over onto the Dome of the Rock/ Temple Mount area. It was such a quick trip, but one that Jewish people never make, as I talked about in an earlier blog. One thing that I neglected to even notice the last time I was on the Temple Mount is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Which is a little bit pathetic because this mosque is where Muhammad is said to have started his journey and is considered the third holiest site in Islam. The architecture of the mosque is really impressive.

Jenessa tried to go in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and someone stopped her. Sometimes you can get in, but that happens a lot less occasionally now.

I TOOK THIS PICTURE!!!! Obviously I'm really impressed with the artistic spin I put on the Dome of the Rock. I would probably buy this from myself for a postcard.

We went into the Jewish quarter of the Old City, and it is NICE. My medical record says I'm 5'7.25" and I'm starting to think that's wrong because sometime I wake up in the middle of the night here with my toes hanging off my bed. So then I have to curl up in a little ball in order to keep my toes safe because a Disney movie about the boogie monster scared me and continues to scare me. Look at this picture and try and tell me that it doesn't look like my parents placed me on a stretching machine when I was younger. My bleeping toes hang off the bed, and it drives me crazy!!!!! I just wanted everyone to know about the really important things happening here.

Last week I talked about the sealed off Golden Gates, so I wanted to post this picture with the Dome of the Rock behind it. In front of the gate are Jewish graves.

After high school, a lot of the students will join the Israeli army of sorts. You see them stationed throughout the city dressed like these girls; their guns aren't actually loaded. We talked to these two girls for a while, and they told Lizzy to email them this picture. The middle girl was celebrating her twentieth birthday, and Lizzy offered for us to sing Happy Birthday to her. That had to have been one of the weirdest moments of my week and one of the most memorable. I think if some foreigners sang me happy birthday I would tell everyone about the weird situation for weeks. 

We finally made it back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Monday! So many churches own a portion of this site that there is a lot to see. This picture is a good example of the ornamentation throughout the site. Thousands of people visit this site everyday.

Schwarma again!

After a long day of adventure, my little Jewish boy fell asleep with her Build-A-Bear 

Hunter knows me all too well and gave me a jar of Nutella. The jar lasted a day between the four of us. 

Why is the Nutella always gone??

Michelle's closet literally vomits all over the room some days. AND WE LOVE IT. It's been a running joke for weeks, and the above scene wasn't structured for this picture, it was alive when I came home. She also got her mission call to Sapporo, JAPAN. They're going to think she's so tall. I bet her feet will hang off the bed on her mission. Michelle is the best.

And then we took Bathsheba pictures.

This week we celebrated Passover five weeks early and had Ophir come and lead us through how the event would go in a Jewish home. There was a lot of Hebrew singing, weird food, good food, and fun. Passover is one of my new favorite holidays; we went on an easter egg hunt of sorts half way through the night in order to find the hidden matzah. The matzah is the unleavened bread used in the Passover sader, and Ophir hid it during the dinner as according to tradition. We ran through the entire building to find it.

Before Passover, we helped Akman in the kitchen make charoset, one of the symbolical foods for the celebration that symbolizes the mortar that the children of Israel used to build the pyramids.

My glass magically filled with sparkling grape juice a billion times throughout the dinner. I guess I was the only one who actually loved it, apparently it tasted like vinegar.

The plate of symbolical food set in the middle of our table. 

My Judaism professor and two of his kids.

We have started to turn the movie camping thing into a weekly occurrence with this weeks choice of The Emperor's New Groove. 

This Friday, a couple of us went to synagogue with Ophir. For Jews, the sabbath starts Friday once the sun has gone down. After the service, Ophir and his family walked home in order to obey the laws of the sabbath. The men and women are divided by a veil and it's impossible to be late to synagogue. People come in when they come and leave when they leave. And Ophir's kids were running around. Everyone holds prayer books and follows the Hebrew singing. We had English/Hebrew prayer books, but everything was going on in Hebrew, so I had no clue where we were. I was sitting by a girl who kind of babysat me through the whole thing and turned my page when needed. She spoke really good English, as most people seem to do. The Jewish community at that synagogue is really used to Ophir bringing his students, so everyone went out of their way to welcome us; Shabbat shalome!

This is me screaming in my sink with toothpaste everywhere. And I have just thrown my toothbrush. So this picture is funny if you know the whole story... I know Tye's younger brother, Austin, from high school. Austin pulled pranks on me every weekend our senior year: goldfish all over my room, dixie cups full of water, numbing gel in my toothpaste, reorganized my drawers, reorganized my furniture, made me chocolate covered mustard/flour paste, fed me brownies that turn your pee (hahaha my mom is going to hit me for saying that word in this) neon orange, etc. etc. etc. On our way back from synagogue, I was telling Tye and everyone there about Austin's mastermind crimes. When we got back to the Center, Tye told me he had actually brought the numbing gel and he thought we should put it in my roommate's toothpaste. So I am really excited and loving Tye. We put the gel in Sara's toothpaste, and I forget about it. That night, I realized Sara had already brushed her teeth, so I felt weird that she hadn't said anything. I started brushing my teeth, and my entire mouth went numb. And that's when this picture was taken and when I realized what was going on. Tye and Austin are the same person. He had hunted down Sara an hour before he found me and convinced her to bring out MY toothpaste. So here me and Sara are thinking we're so funny pulling pranks on each other when in reality he really was just pulling a fast one on both of us. He has no idea what he just started.

Sawyer and me after Aubreigh Guynn opened her mission call to Brazil! We have had ten mission calls since we arrived here.

For Sabbath today, we decided to go visit the Garden of Gethsemane again. While we were there a Jewish girl from Poland and her Israeli guide/friend asked me where the Garden Tomb was located. I gave the directions and we talked for a little while. (I know everyone is concerned that I tried to give someone directions, but I double checked with John and he confirmed the route. Hopefully they made it). She was staying in Jerusalem for a day and wanted to see all of the historical sights. We started talking and I told her I was studying at Mormon University. Her mouth dropped open and she asked me if I was Mormon. I told her I was and she got all jumpy like. She told me she had never met a real Mormon before. I started laughing and told her we liked to think we were pretty normal. From the way she was looking at me, I think she was surprised that I didn't exactly fit the mold she had constructed for Mormons. She told me she thought we would look 1990's. Then she asked if a few of us would take a picture with her because we were the first Mormons she'd ever known. The image for the LDS church really makes me laugh sometimes. We aren't as strange as everyone hopes we are. Being here has taught me that religions are all more alike than we think. 

On our way to Gethsemane, we jumped over one of the little stone walls to take a picture among the poppies. The wind grabbed Michelle's skirt and flipped it over her head. Easily one of the funniest things in the world. Sweet Michelle mooned everyone. Dang skirts.

I'm standing in front of an olive grove sectioned off as the Garden of Gethsemane. What you see in the picture is almost the size of the entire garden. Across the road there is a garden that you can schedule a tour for that isn't as manicured, so I think we're going to try and go next week.

The steps of the church by the Garden of Gethsemane.

And that's all I have! The next time I post, I will have completed (aha hopefully) the half marathon! I have a feeling after running it will be really easy for my sunbeams to beat me up. 

Cheers!

Lindee

(Title goes to Preston Danielson)

Israel, Surreal

 I realized this week that I have a few pictures from our trip to Orson Hyde Gardens and the Garden of Gethsemane that I could share. I think my text description of the Garden wasn't super helpful. Come to think of it these pictures aren't incredibly helpful either, but here we go.

This was taken at the entry to the Orson Hyde Gardens. The entire garden is a collection of switchbacks down the Mount of Olives

Here is Lizzy in the Orson Hyde Garden's with the Orson Hyde Garden picture that is printed in the quad. 

This one is my favorite picture for sure. The church you're seeing is the Church of All Nations and the Garden of Gethsemane is the small grove of trees to the left in front of the other building you can see. Not what you were expecting huh? The golden church to the right and up is the Russian Orthodox Mary Magdalene Church. I think this picture was taken across the road outside of the Golden Gate. The Old City has seven different gates each with interesting tidbits of information about them. The Golden Gate is the place where the Messiah is supposed to enter Jerusalem through, according to Ezekiel 44:1-3. It actually was sealed off in 1541 AD and still isn't used because Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent wanted to prevent the Messiah's entrance. Good luck, right?

Sunday was another day of exploration. We didn't visit any churches/sites/historical locations, but we're turning over a new leaf and I think our plan for tomorrow is strictly theologically related: there's a church on every corner of everything and we're going to try to attend a Bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall. I hope it works in our favor. Anyway, here are a few bits of information about our completely religious-less exploration day. Starting with Abercrombie and Fitch. 

Ok, did this make anyone laugh? Yes, Israel has Hollister and Abercrombie, and yes I could smell it before I could see it.

We visited a strip mall in West Jerusalem because everyone has realized they can't run the half marathon in cargo pants or button up cotton shirts. I think the Mac makeup store is behind me and Gap is just down the road. And it looks like I'm standing right in front of American Eagle. American Eagle in Israel, ironic.

We eventually ended up in the Old City and now I'm engaged. The shop keeper seemed to enjoy how ridiculous we were over the sparkly rings he had because he found another band of diamonds to add to the three I was already wearing after this picture was taken. The good news is that on Valentines Day when we were in the city someone asked me how many camels I would cost. I decided to be reasonable and told him three hundred, but he offered a million instead. That's probably the equivalent to the ring, right? Unfortunately, I think he uses that pick-up line sixty times a day. He's good.

Me, Lizzy, and Preston. For weeks we've been too scared to try the different baked goods they have sitting alongside the road, but we caved and tried these pizza things. They're definitely not pizza, but that's probably the closest description.

Herb cheese thing?

On Monday we went on our field trip to the City of David. King David took Jerusalem from the Jebusites and renamed it Jerusalem, so I guess the City of David is really just Jerusalem a thousand years before Christ. One of the most interesting things about the field trip had to do with the current affairs of the nation; the Palestinian/Israeli conflict was visibly present as you overlooked the city from different viewpoints. The area is considered a Palestinian village and some wealthy Israelis have purchased houses in the village and then proceeded to raise large Israeli flags over the home. It really makes the people mad. I won't pretend to understand all of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, so that's a small synopsis of some of the conflict.

Wet hair don't care.
You may be able to find an Israeli flag on one of the houses. I should have taken a direct picture. Everyone loves a good game of where's Waldo, right?

We also were able to walk through Hezekiah's Tunnel! The tunnel is actually still in use today, probably just for irrigation because I would imagine people wouldn't want to drink the water a couple hundred people have walked through. The tunnel was built around 701 BC during King Hezekiah's reign in order to channel water from the Gihon spring to the pool of Siloam within the city walls of Jerusalem. Two groups of people dug in the limestone towards each other until they met somewhere in the middle. The tunnel is about 1770 feet long and took us a half an hour to walk through. This paragraph is all over the place, but the story of Jesus healing the blind man in John 9 occurs in the pool of Siloam. I could summarize the story, but it would be a pathetic representation for what the chapter actually says. You read the Bible, I'll add some pictures.

Part of the tunnel required us to walk bent over, so it's not your ideal location for claustrophobes. The Gihon Spring means "gushing" which adequately describes the tunnel. If it were wider you could have a blast floating the spring. Parts of the tunnel had a strong resemblance to Space Mountain at Disneyland when everyone turned off their flashlights. Actually I don't feel like any of those descriptions really describe the experience.

Chaille, Jenessa, Hannah, Sara, me.

I promise it's a seasoning that they handed me with my bagel, not weed. 

On Wednesday evenings we have important people from the community come in and speak to us on important political or historical events. This last week we were able to have a Holocaust survivor come in and present a lecture. His name is Elias and he is ninety-five years old. He speaks Spanish, but we have a couple of students in the center who served LDS missions in various Spanish speaking areas that were able to translate for us. He began his remarks by stating that speaking about his experiences gives him strength. He lectured for about an hour and then allowed us to ask questions, but I'll just dictate a few points that really stuck out to me.

Elias survived nine concentration camps, including Auswitch, the largest concentration/death camp. He told a story about the Nazis sorting people into two different groups: one to be murdered and the other to be sent to work. He remembers pinching his cheeks and slapping his face in order to give himself a healthy look. Listening to him recount his experiences was something I'll never forget and one that is difficult to relay in words. It was an inspiring and sobering night.

His grand daughter, Elias, Mitchell, and Taylor (Mitchell and Taylor were our translators)

Elias' tattooed number from Auswitch.

Lizzy and I are the best nook buddies in the world. One night this week we all pulled our mattresses to the floor and watched High School Musical. In our defense, it was the only movie Sara has on her laptop. 

I waited to post this blog entry because this Sunday we went to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum. Our Judaism professor, Ophir, acted as our tour guide and gave us interesting insights into the events. I went to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC with my family a few years back, and I'm pleased to say that Yad Vashem was drastically less graphic. The one in DC didn't allow children under the age of twelve in for a long time until they built walls that children couldn't see over. I remember walking away from the one in DC feeling terrible and nauseated by what I had just experienced. Yad Vashem teaches and relays the events adequately, but it also is a really beautiful memorial to the people. Again, as with the lecture by Elias, the experience is something that really was just a compilation of emotions that can't be conveyed through writing. I read a novel in high school that I appreciated (I don't know if you can really say you liked a novel about the Holocaust) called Night by Elie Wiesel. I would recommend reading it. 

Me and India on Mount Herzl outside Yad Vashem. We'd been outside of the building for thirty minutes when this picture was taken. As you can imagine, no one left the building smiling.

A memorial outside of the children's section of Yad Vashem. 

I think I'll end here because there isn't much to say after bringing up the Holocaust. This week was a lot of fun, but I've also had the chance to be reminded of the important things in my life. Henry B. Eyring reminds us that "the Lord regularly sends wake-up calls to all of us." This was certainly one of those weeks!

(The half marathon is two weeks from last Friday. I'm trying not to think about it because I might throw up if I do. Peer pressure is a terrible thing.)

Lindee

Cramming For More Than Just Tests...

Hello America!

I have some big news, but I'll get to that later. 

This week has been another one for the record books. Actually, I spent a lot of the time cramming for midterms, at least pretending to. The course material isn't super difficult, but the draw of the city makes studying for tests super difficult. I'll be done with most of my classes by the first week of March, and then we'll stay at a resort in Galilee for ten days and fly to Turkey.

Our Sunday escapade began with inhaling some sugary cereal. I only mention the cereal because it's a really big part of my morning as of lately. Some people call them Heaven Pillows. The cereal is like a pillow full of Nutella and when you pour milk over it they kind of goosh/explode/ooze in your mouth. What's not to love about that? Rumor has it you can purchase it in the states and it's called Crave, or Krave. So appropriate and so delicious. Sometimes I'll even wake up ten minutes early or neglect blow drying my hair so I can make it to the Oasis before they're all gone. Breakfast starts at seven and ends at eight; one time this last week I made it there at seven am and I had three bowls. 

A few entries ago I talked about visiting the Western Wall with my class to observe the celebration of the beginning of the Sabbath. We decided to visit it Sunday and see what we could find. After having sat through a few more Israel/Judaism lectures from Ophir, I definitely was more aware of what was going on. This time I noticed some of the women were wearing wigs; hair should only be seen by a women's husband and God, so sometimes they'll just shave it off to bypass all the trouble of covering it. That being said, not everyone practices/believes the same thing. Also, I noticed that when someone leaves the wall they back away so as to not turn their back on the wall. As expected, there were a lot less people praying at the wall on a Sunday morning, so we were able to locate the table with paper and write down prayers to roll up and stick in the wall.

I actually convinced my paper to stray in the wall this time.

Once we made it into the Old City we ambled around the streets and somehow ended up playing soccer for the third time. I am going to give Messi a run for his money if I keep this up. Jenessa, Sara, and I took off from the old city and crossed over into West Jerusalem to find the YMCA. We had all signed up to play the carillon bells. Ya, I know, I had no clue what they were either before we actually got there. Here are some pictures to explain.

So here we are with the Squires, a service couple at the Jerusalem Center and also my personal next door neighbors. They were helping us figure out what was going on; two people are needed to play anything with more than two notes at a time because most people only have two hands. I was playing the top hand of the Minuet by J.S. Bach. You use all of your strength and yank a handle down for each note. The spacing of the keys makes it a really flustered motion to find everything, so I missed a G while we were playing. Gee, I wish I'd found that G. Only 300 thousand people heard, or rather didn't hear, my mistake. Depression for weeks.

Here we are practicing on the practice carillon piano thing. This one isn't connected to the ginormous bells in the YMCA tower.

After we had internalized that it's fun to stay at the YMCA, we headed back to the Center to work on homework and laundry because we were going out on the town later that night. Everyone met at Joppa Gate and we went to a little pasta restaurant off the road in West Jerusalem. I had goat cheese pizza and pesto spaghetti. It was about as good as it sounds, so I think I'll leave that open for interpretation. I think we overwhelmed the owner because there were about twenty of us in there and then the power went out. Oh, here's something depressing that we were able to confirm, there is absolutely no Mexican food in any of Israel. We met a Jew who immigrated from America and he confirmed my suspicions. 

After dinner we stopped to get gelato at Aldo's. They have a dark chocolate gelato that is really good on a coconut dipped cones. I just really, really like chocolate.

In accordance with the last few weeks we went on a field trip on Monday. This time we went to the Shephelah, the lower hills. The biggest things/stories we talked about were the story of David and Goliath, the Ark of the Covenant being stolen by the Philistines, and Samson. 

Tye, me, Kara. Behind us is the Elah Valley where David would have met Goliath. Also where David would have killed Goliath. With a slingshot. Sadly the rocks we used are rocks brought up for dorky tourist such as ourselves.

We went down into a dove cove and posed as doves. Not our best reenactment.

Hunter, me, Sawyer. Sawyer was the one who led Sunday meditation a few weeks back. Suddenly your vision of sunrise yoga became a whole lot cooler. He's the greatest.

We took a break from cramming for midterms on Wednesday and celebrated Arab culture night. We mimicked the feast they have after Ramadan, and people were encouraged to dress up. Two of the local imam's came to present the call to prayer for us. An imam is the prayer leader and will sing the call to prayer over a loudspeaker five times each day. Technically it's not singing, but they stress and hold the Arabic words so it has a musical quality to it. They have the entire Quran memorized, and one of the imam's said it took him five years. Super impressive. As I've said in earlier entries, I really love hearing the call to prayer; it reminds me of how cultural of a place I'm living in and how there is still so much about people in general that I have yet to learn.

 I'm not the ONLY one looking, but pretty much.

 Stuffed carrots? Also I didn't know that I was eating lamb until the next day. I thought it was chicken.

 After dinner we had some dance instructors teach us a few Arabic dances. It went really well for thirty minutes and then everyone kind of threw in the towel and danced like Americans. I think the instructor's were a little bit amused. We probably looked so bizarre to them.

 I'm really not sure why I ended up holding J's hand. It makes no sense.

  Here we are with Jen, our fellow head scarf wearer. J and I went to town on the eyeliner as you can tell from previous pictures.

And now to explain my title and first sentence. I'm running a half marathon. IN THREE WEEKS!!! It's a little nauseating to think about. I googled how to train for a half marathon in three weeks and I found this, "Training for a half-marathon virtually from scratch in a month is obviously not a wise decision." Well obviously. But I saw the chance to run a half marathon and what better place than the Holy City. The event takes place on March 1st and it goes throughout Jerusalem. I haven't been running since the summer, but mob mentality will convince you to do a lot of stupid things. I started my training program Friday night running the Center stairs up and down. Who am I kidding? There is no rhyme or reason, let alone a program, to what I'm doing. This also means that I'm swearing off pita bread until this is all over and done with. I think I've lost all reasoning here. 

I went and visited the Garden of Gethsemane today after our church services; I didn't bring a camera with me because I'll be back multiple times. However, I did want to share my thoughts on the trip. We walked through Orson Hyde Gardens in order to access the entry to Gethsemane. Orson Hyde Gardens is a project by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS); anyway, the LDS church decided if the members wanted to raise the money, 1 million, the Israeli government would whole-heartedly support the development of the area. A lot of people hold great significance to the area because it's on the Mount of Olives, but it had started to become trashy and rundown communities were on their way to eventually consuming the mountain. So the arrangement worked out well for everyone; the gardens are beautiful and well-preserved and everyone can enjoy them. When we entered the Garden of Gethsemane I was surprised at the discrepancy between what I was seeing and what my brain thought I'd see. There is a small gated-off area with trees that date back to 500 AD, and behind this there is an All-Nation's church. The area is beautiful, well groomed, and peaceful. I always had pictured Gethsemane to be a forest. I'll take pictures next time in order to share what I mean. 

In Gethsemane I felt simple peace. I have found this to be a reoccurring theme as I have traveled here: the sites and locations don't touch me or inspire me unless I am focusing on the events or the knowledge I have. We can all experience our own visit to the Garden of Gethsemane by taking five minutes of every day to sit in solitude and remember the Savior, remember the worth of his life. It doesn't take traveling eight thousand miles to feel what I felt today, but I have learned more adequately how to make sure I have the Savior's love in my life each day. After all, isn't that one of our driving forces each day? To become more as the Savior? If you ask the gardener really nicely sometimes he'll give you a piece of one of the branches he's just trimmed off the tree.

And that about sums up my week! I hope all is going well. Oh, I found out how to say I want a kiss in Arabic: "biddi bowsee." We just study oral Arabic so I don't actually know how to spell it, but I figure Sara will get some use out of that one. Ice cream is boozeah.

Lindee